Evidence of meeting #28 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employers.
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Well, it's great having you here. We're going to be going out to Halifax as well.
2:35 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
Good.
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Also, the chair is going to take us to St. John's.
I guess from a sociological perspective, one of the problems I have with temporary foreign workers and people with precarious status--and you've heard that terminology--
2:35 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I know that terminology well.
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
--is that we have an underclass, if you will, in Canada, of people who don't have the stability of working towards Canadian citizenship. Then I look at countries like Germany and the kinds of problems they had with guest workers. I look at the agricultural workers who come back decade after decade after decade. Now, maybe all of them don't want to come and make Canada their home, but I dare say most of them would, and that's troublesome.
Also, what kind of image of Canada does this project to the world when we're so ready to go and exploit people from other places? I wonder if you have any thoughts on this.
2:35 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I've lots of thoughts on that, but I'll try to limit myself to just a couple.
I think we need to ask some pretty hard questions with respect to a whole range of issues around this. Some of the larger ones are things like how do we foster cohesive and integrative communities? How do we have a framework of integration on the one hand and then on the other hand have this temporary population doing the work that the permanent population doesn't want to do? How do we maintain a community that is cohesive and not have increased racism and violence? I think that's one of the frameworks.
The other is to think about what this says about Canadian society, and I think you raise some good points in terms of whether we want to have a nation of workers or a nation of immigrants. I think that's something that needs to be taken into consideration.
I think using the foreign worker program to address particular kinds of labour market needs is not a new thing, but to see the changes that have been made to facilitate greater ease, and the speed at which this has been taken up by employers is a way of going around, I think, for many employers, the problems of getting permanent residents in to work. I think it does create a two-tiered system. It does create a problem with respect to importing people on a temporary basis to do work we don't want to do, and I think that's a real problem.
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
You mentioned Maple Leaf, and of course we have Schneider's in Kitchener, which was bought out by Maple Leaf. One of the things that happened is that wages were suppressed, and that's really difficult. Friends of mine were laid off and lost their jobs. Then Maple Leaf picked up some new people, but they picked up new people at the lower rates. It somehow is troublesome.
It reminds me of how, in Canada's history, when we needed to expand the railway, the only way we could do it was to get the Chinese. The Chinese came in, and they built the railway, and as soon as the railway was finished being built, of course, we had the Chinese head tax and exclusion acts, and the result was to keep families separated.
It bothers me to see the temporary foreign workers coming over here without their families. It creates problems for the families. Certainly the government claims to be a champion of family values. Well, I'm a Liberal, and to me being able to see your family and be with them is a pretty strong family value.
I wonder if you have any comments on that.
2:40 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I think the foreign worker program treats people as workers--just that. They're not treating this population as immigrants with families.
Almost all of them have family members in countries of origin. Not only is that difficult for the foreign workers, but it translates into separation issues for the families and it translates into increased mental health problems. There are all sorts of issues faced by migrants.
As we've seen, many temporary and migrant workers want to become permanent. When they do so, they do so without their families. This could be a long-term thing, not just a temporary period—a one-year or 24-month type of contract—away from their families. This could be 10 years, quite feasibly, for many of these workers. That's something that needs to be taken into consideration when we think about this.
Also, regarding the temporary program, even if we think about it realistically being a program that helps bring migrants into particular areas, even if we channel them in and give them access to permanent residency, then what we have are migrants who have been separated from their families for long periods of time, who have come in through a route that has taken longer for them to do so. It basically leaves them in the situation in which, once they're in, they may have difficulty sponsoring their families, to bring them over at that point, as well. So we could be talking about really long-term separations from families, as well.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you.
One thing you also mentioned is that we indenture people, because there's an employer who pays to bring them in. When employer one is found to be abusive, it would be unfair for employer two to enjoy the fact that employer one is responsible for buying them their fare home.
It would seem to me that if you have an abusive employer who is going to abuse a person who's essentially indentured to them, I have absolutely no problem penalizing that employer and making them pay a lot more than the return air ticket home.
Could we improve the situation by saying that if you're going to come over to work as a nanny, you are open to work as a nanny for a number of employers? This might be a good warning to employers: you cannot abuse your nanny because they're going to say good-bye and go and work for someone else. Hopefully that in itself would improve the working conditions for nannies.
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Please give a short response, and then we'll go to Mr. Komarnicki.
2:40 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I do think it's a problem if it's being widely used. Transfers between employers are a problem for workers, particularly in the seasonal agricultural workers program, when that happens under the table.
But I do think your point is well taken. If you have a system where the only concern is that the employer pays for bringing the worker and sending him home, then I think it's missing the point. The point is that it needs to be an evaluative system to assess employers and to document and remove those who have been violating workers.
I think one of the ways in conjunction...that needs to happen with a more open work permit so that, yes, they can change employers, but also with a regulatory mechanism.
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the presenters.
Unfortunately, Mr. Telegdi wasn't here when we were talking about some of the grave labour shortages that are experienced across the country, certainly by your organization, Ms. Reynolds. There is no doubt our country needs a lot of people to fill a lot of positions that we can't fill from within our country.
I've been from hearing a number of witnesses that they're looking for some type of bridge from temporary status to permanent status. The examples of that are the Canadian experience class. When you've been in Canada for a number of years, you can then apply for permanent residence. The provinces have been invited to uptake on the provincial nominee program--i.e., you can actually set out the categories you would like to nominate and the federal government will allow you to meet the regional-provincial needs that you might have. I know in Saskatchewan, for instance, if you're a temporary resident and you've been in the province for six months, you can apply through the provincial nominee program, which eventually gives you landed status.
It seems to me that notwithstanding your having temporary workers come in, the idea that a lot of people expressed is to bring them into a permanent resident status.
The other aspect is that if you have a job and you can bring your family, you are likely to stay. There's been a suggestion that the spouses of the people who come should be given open work permits so they too can work and their children can come with them. Many of them are quite able and qualified, and there's a demand for labour. You can find yourself in an awkward situation when the child or the spouse is able to work but doesn't have that ability. So there's been some suggestion that we ought to expand that and find a means to offer them permanent residence.
I'd like to ask you for a comment about that aspect that we heard from Joyce and also from Ms. Hennebry.
I'll conclude with a question to Silvia with respect to CREWS. I'm wondering if the provinces really have a good uptake with CREWS, which I understand caters to the construction industry. Or is not working as it's meant to? There are a number of undocumented workers, if you want to call them that, who are working in the industry without going through that process. Has there been any intention of looking at the provincial nominee program, which gives the province a whole new type of jurisdiction to deal with workers who may be needed in construction and other industries?
Perhaps Joyce could start.
2:45 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, Government Affairs, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
Absolutely we would support provisions that would allow the family members of temporary foreign workers to work as well. My understanding is that the A, B, and O categories permit that, and the C and D categories do not. We have situations where our members are employing temporary foreign workers who do have other family members who would like to be able to work and are not able to at this time.
2:45 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
With respect to bringing in family members and providing them with open work permits, I too would concur that this would be a very feasible solution, particularly, as you pointed out, for the NOC C and D workers, because that's not the case.... On the other hand, I would be concerned with the provincial nominee program that is being utilized in Manitoba and Saskatchewan--
2:45 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
--to assist in securing residency as being the only way. I think we need to think of some other mechanisms to do so, or rethink the immigration policy. Clearly if all these temporary workers end up as permanent migrants, there's obviously a need for those migrants, and we need to rethink our immigration system at the get-go.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
You're suggesting we should do it directly through the federal stream as opposed to the provincial stream?
2:45 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I'm saying that there needs to be some rethinking about that. If it's happening directly through the federal stream, maybe it can happen with the provincial nominee program at the same time there is some provincial nominee process...but that at least we don't have to only go through, or the provinces aren't stuck only going through, temporary workers and then the provincial nominee program.
2:45 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
Yes, I definitely think it has merit to it.
I'm just saying that on a larger scale for the longer term, we need to integrate provincial needs for immigration and regional needs for immigration into the point system, into a federal system, as well, that it doesn't seem to be recognizing clearly.
2:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Construction Recruitment External Workers Services (CREWS) and Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD)
You asked about the CREWS program. We can probably admit that it did not meet its full potential. At the beginning, when it started in 2001, it was plagued by the involvement of third party recruiters and a misunderstanding of how the program worked with respect to the visa posts abroad. Some workers were already here illegally and could not use the program.
Applications picked up and became more successful as a result of the high media attention that was given in March 2006 to certain deportations. As a result, when people realized that there was not going to be an undocumented program at that time, they used the temporary foreign worker program to regularize their status. But as I mentioned, not everyone has been able to do so.
Currently a lot of the companies are using the PNP to get permanent residency status for the workers. Some workers have been here seven years on a temporary basis and they just continue to renew because they've had no ability to become permanent. Although, most of the companies do not qualify under the requirements of the Ontario PNP.
Most of our companies, 70% of those that I deal with, have nine or fewer employees. They are the small subcontractors that are employed by the larger contractors, who are employed by the builders. It's the nature of the companies, small business, and they do not meet the requirements of the PNP.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Again, it's something that's provincially driven. The province can expand, include, or use discretion for some of the categories if they wish to actually make it work for that particular industry.
2:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Construction Recruitment External Workers Services (CREWS) and Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD)
Exactly.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
That's something the provinces have to have a look at.
The other aspect I wanted to ask you about is that we seem to have a good number of undocumented workers--there have been various estimations--but they're doing useful things in the economy. It seems that there aren't legitimate ways or means for them to come through to meet those needs, so they go some other way after everything else fails.
Would you agree with that comment? Should there be some way of meeting what appears to be a need for a particular group of people doing particular kinds of things?